Conference communications, namely the capability for more than two parties to simultaneously communicate, is a fundamental feature of audio and video electronic communications. Heretofore a variety of methods exist to enable conference communications, and all involve some method to receive and deliver communications media from and to the parties in conference. In some systems, all communications are simultaneously point-to-point, while in other systems all communications are hub-and-spoke where the hub handles receiving, mixing, and sending media for all parties. Mixing media is useful in the case of audio to simulate in-person communications in the cases where individual conference parties are speaking simultaneously.
Prior art systems typically assign a single hub for a master conference server. Furthermore, prior art systems do not allow master conference servers to be dynamically selected or dynamically allocated for various failover conditions. What is needed is a system and method for dynamically selecting a master conference server in real time that has the ability to adjust for failover conditions and other call-quality requirements.
The present invention meets one or more of the above-referenced needs as described herein in greater detail.